School of Light and Color Plein Air Wednesday

Last Wednesday at the School of Light and Color it was a beautiful day to paint outside. Nine of my brave students faced the challenge for the first time. They all did great! I wasn't sure what the weather was going to be like so I set up a still life outdoors.
I demo'd this piece, but finished it at home from a photograph. It would have been much better for me to finish outdoors in life, because you canNOT see the color in a photograph. In addition the values are not the same at all. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
As in last month I took some wonderful pics in the Los Angeles area that came out well, but it was impossible, of course, for me to paint on the spot. (I was on a family trip).
So when we have to paint from photographs we do. It helps if you have spent some time painting outdoors. After I spent a lot of hours out there (and painted a lot of failures), I began to understand the differences in painting outside and painting from a photograph. Because I spent those hours outside painting, I can now judge better what the camera missed, and adjust. But it is very difficult (if not impossible) to do this otherwise. If we don't learn from experience, we have a tendency to copy the photograph. When we copy a photograph, it looks like a copy of a photograph and not a beautifully constructed painting.

Kathy finished up and was heading out, so I asked if I could take a picture. Beautiful painting Kathy!

Looks like we might be painting chickens and hens in the near future!

Now that everybody has had a taste of plein air painting, I am inviting you to join me at the Horton Iris Farm on Friday April 20th for a demonstration and instruction. Please email me and let me know if you are interested as the class is filling fast!

In my next post I'll share with you a study from a photo in LA. I'm considering a series called "staying connected", because almost all the people in my photographs have an iphone in their hands......